In space for 46 years: Voyager 1 no longer communicates with Earth

No spacecraft has ever traveled into space like NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft. Now the nearly 50-year-old technology seems to have reached its limits. The system has been suspended.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft suffered a computer error that caused a loss of communication between the 46-year-old probe and its mission team on Earth, according to “CNN». Engineers are currently trying to solve the problem as the ancient space probe explores an unknown cosmic region along the outer edges of the solar system.

Voyager 1 is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth, at a distance of about 24 billion kilometers. Originally designed to last five years, Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the two longest spacecraft in history. Voyager 1 began its journey into space on September 5, 1977. But the unexpectedly long mission is now leading to technical challenges.

Data captured in a loop

The spacecraft has three computers on board, including a flight data system that collects information from the spacecraft’s science instruments and combines it with technical data that reflects the current technical status of Voyager 1. The control team on Earth receives this data in binary code, that is, as a string of ones And zeros.

Voyager 1’s flight data system now appears to have switched to auto-repeat. The mission team first noticed the problem on November 14, when the system’s communications module began transmitting a repeated pattern of 1’s and 0’s as if it was stuck in a loop.

While the spacecraft is still able to receive and execute commands sent by the mission team on Earth, the communications problem means that no scientific or technical data from Voyager 1 will be sent back to Earth.

The mission team sent commands to the spacecraft to restart the flight data system over the weekend, but no usable data has been returned yet, according to NASA.